So, my plan for today was to prepare a crepe demonstration, but getting 10 minutes alone in my house to shoot a segment is kind of difficult. Especially if you don't want to hear, "Hey mom, I'm hungry," a hundred times or catch a glimpse of my brother wandering through the kitchen in his underpants. So, that piece will have to wait.
For now, I'm still trying to get rid of the butt loads of zucchini my garden is producing this year! Seriously! I raid my garden every morning before the sun starts baking Missouri to a scorching 187 degrees! So how is it, that I can pick all the zucchini I can find one morning, & still find a 300 pound whopper in the garden the very next morning?! Ok, maybe I tend to exaggerate a little, but you get the picture.
So today, I put together Susanna's Surprise Apple Crisp. What makes it such a Surprise, you say? Well, because my sister, Susanna's, husband HATES zucchini - or so he thinks. Every year she makes this for him because he loves apple crisp. The surprise comes into play because, every year, he eats it up & has no idea it's made with zucchini! You, & any little zucchini haters you might have scattered around your house, won't be able to tell either!
At my house, by the end of July, I'm getting comments like, "Enough with the zucchini everything mom!" So I have to get creative if I intend to use up all of the sustenance our gardens supply & avoid an all out revolt from my family as well.
Thus, I fall back on old favorites, like . . .
SUSANNA'S SURPRISE APPLE CRISP
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar - divided
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup butter - softened
8 cups zucchini - peeled, de-seeded & chopped (see below)
3/4 cup lemon juice - bottled or fresh
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
2 tsp. cinnamon - divided
Using a pastry knife, combine flour, 3/4 cup of the sugar, brown sugar & butter. Pat, don't press, into the bottom of a 9x13 cake pan, & bake at 350 for 10 minutes.
Now chopping the zucchini is part of the trick here. Cut the ends off, cut it in half lengthwise & dig the seedy middle section out with a spoon (& feed that to the chickens if you've got 'em). Then cut the halves into long, triangular sections & chop those into apple chunk looking pieces.
Voila! Zucchini that looks like cut up apples.
Cook these in the lemon juice, over medium heat for about 15 minutes, 'til they're tender.
Add nutmeg, 1 cup of the sugar & 1 tsp. of the cinnamon. Stir this until the sugar dissolves, about 5 minutes. At this point the sauce is very liquidy, it's ok, it's suppose to be. Just pour it over the baked crust & bake this another 30 minutes, still at 350.
Mix remaining 1/4 cup of sugar & 1 tsp. of cinnamon, sprinkle this over the top & bake 5 minutes longer.
I serve it warm with a big glob of vanilla bean ice cream. Yummmmers!
Here's a great gift idea too:
Mix together the crust ingredients & put them in one jar. Then prepare the zucchini mixture up to the point where you are ready to pour it onto the crust, but put that in another jar instead. Put the lids on the zucchini jars & boil them (just the zucchini jars, NOT the dry ingredient jars), submerged, in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. (And don't get the idea that I make comments like that, about not boiling the dry ingredient jar, because I think you are an idiot. I do that because I know what an idiot I have been about recipes sometimes!)
Then just dress up the jars & add a label with the following instructions & give away!
Dry Ingredient Jar Instructions:
Using a pastry knife, cut 3/4 cup of butter into contents of this jar. Pat, don't press, into a 9x13 cake pan & bake at 350 for 10 minutes.
Zucchini Jar Instructions:
Pour onto baked crust & bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with some cinnamon sugar & bake 5 minutes longer. Serve with vanilla bean ice cream.
Thanks y'all for sticking with me & as always,
Cook It, Share It, LOVE It!
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